Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Today a woman came into our cafe, and I thought she looked familiar, but I couldn't place her. I was thinking she must be a regular that I don't see every day. Later I realized that it was Tatum O'Neal, an actress who holds the record for being the youngest person ever to win an Academy Award. At the age of 10 she won the 1974 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Paper Moon. It struck me today that I am having trouble telling the difference between famous people who have come in and just customers who are familiar. I guess my mind just knows that I've seen them before, and it has to take time to sort out where. Anyway, it was a funny thing to me. In my Starbucks eyes, all of our customers are stars. ;-)

Saturday, April 12, 2008

I haven't updated my blog in awhile so I thought I'd share a few stories. First, I'll let you know that my demo art lesson had to be postponed, so nothing new has happened with the potential art teaching position. I don't have a new date for that yet, but they will give me advance notice.

Spring is here and it makes quite a difference in the feel of the City. Trees and flowers and coming alive and people are out everywhere. You really notice the difference when the weather is nice. People seem to be in high spirits and the noise level increases substantially as people get outside more.The other morning I was walking to work from 14th Street past a great little triangular park in the West Village. It was just getting light outside and I was looking at the magnolia trees that were in the process of blooming. I was thinking, "The City really comes alive and blooms in the springtime." Then I looked at the sidewalk and saw a pile of what I think was bizarre-colored vomit. Such is life here. You get some of the best things, tempered with some of the worst.

I served a few celebrities at work this week. That was exciting. The Village is an expensive place to live and I think a lot of celebrities have homes there. Interacting with the these people (albeit briefly and in making a transaction across a coffee counter) reminds me that Hollywood stars are not so big and they need their coffee ground just like everyone else. But it's still fun to share.

First there was Victor Garber, who played Jack Bristow on "Alias", one of my favorite television shows. He has also been in "Titanic", the play "Godspell", and a host of other shows. He visited for a bit with Kelsey while his coffee was being ground. He seemed nice.

That same afternoon I stayed a little late, and Parker Posey came in. I gave her some change back. Ha. She is one of my favorite actresses. Her characters crack me up. She played the mean girlfriend of Tom Hanks' character in "You've Got Mail" and was in the hilarious mockumentary "Waiting for Guffman".

Today Clive Owen was in the store. He was wearing sunglasses. After work I started second-guessing it was him, but I'm 98% sure it was him. I had some trouble at the register while I was ringing his order up. I hit the wrong button and had to do math in my head. Dangerous. I don't know much about him, but he was in the movie "Children of Men", which is one of the most moving films I've seen (it's very sad and not for everyone).

As I was taking a walk after work I passed a woman who seemed familiar. She sounded familiar as well. She was walking her dog and talking on her cell phone. After I passed her, I realized she may have been a lady who played in "The Station Agent", a film I recently viewed. I really liked the characters in that film. I decided not to turn around and stalk her to see if it was really the same person.

I kicked a rat this past week. I went out with Aubrey (a fellow Starbucks partner who transferred to New York last December) and some of her friends on the Upper West Side of Manhattan last Tuesday night. I was walking to the subway stop late at night and there were rats taking advantage of the garbage on the curbs. The garbage bags go out on the curbs here and are picked up at night in some neighborhoods. It's not unusual to see rats outside at night or in the subways at any time. (I've been trying to think of names for the rats in the Myrtle-Willoughby station- once I saw one run right behind a guy who was leaning against the wall- he moved away from the wall after that) They typically run and hide when I am walking in their direction at night. The sidewalk isn't covered in rats, but you see a few here and there. As I was walking Tuesday night, a rat ran across the sidewalk diagonally right in my path. I'm not quite clear if I was just stepping or actually tried to kick the rat, but my foot hit it ever so slightly and it stumbled but kept running. I yelled an explicitive and then had to laugh at it. It was nasty, though. Thankfully I wasn't wearing sandals, huh?